On Ode to September | Shop Salt + Paperie

September will certainly go down in the books as one of the best (and fastest!) months ever! I seriously could not have asked for a better birthday month, let alone the actual day of my birthday, where I was treated to a massage, lunch, shopping, a blow-out, mani and pedi, dinner and my favorite band with some of my favorite people. Seriously?! It was hard to jump back into reality after that! Thank you to everyone who made my birthday special, but mostly my husband who coordinated all of my adventures, and made 28 seem like it really will be the best year ever.

(iphone photos)

Thank you also to everyone who helped me celebrate all month long with our #birthdaygiveaways! The September #birthdaygiveaways were so much fun for me to be able to connect with my business followers, and thank you for helping me achieve everything that we have in such a short amount of time. The support of friends and family far and near is not lost on me, and I cannot thank you enough! You are the very reason I am able to live this dream of being a small business owner!

It all started with a trip to Target with my friend, and fellow business owner, Ali! We’ve always been birthday fanatics, and I was telling her how I wanted to do a giveaway each week in September as a celebration of my birthday month with my business friends. I had an armful of random things that I would have liked to have at Target, but none of it was significant in any way, shape or form. Ali asked, “Why don’t you do a giveaway that has to do with your business? Like the business card one you did before, I liked that… it was relevant.”

The wheels began turning, and our first giveaway was a set of Salt + Paperie thank you cards. The response was so great towards our Preesh card, I thought, “Hmm… maybe I should make some more.” That’s when it all clicked. I didn’t have it all planned out, but sometimes that’s when the best magic happens!

The second giveaway was paper party supplies! We are excited to be partnering with The Flair Exchange for paper goods! I’ve always wanted to be able to provide confetti and tassels to the Salt + Paperie supporters, but being a two-man show doesn’t leave a lot of time for making garland! I found The Flair Exchange and it seemed like the perfect fit for Salt + Paperie with products our customers would love. They embodied the same spirit that we have here, and not to mention, they make fun stuff!

(look at all those friends helping me acheive greatness! i’ve only known them for a year, yet I love them so!)

Our third giveaway was print of a quote that seriously made me chuckle. Really, did Abraham Lincoln really say the word hustle!? And our fourth giveaway with the most amazing response from you guys was our custom address stamp! It seriously was such a joy to have so many people participate in the birthday month giveaways! My heart could explode!

And that’s how we got to October 1st and this….

Each #birthdaygiveaway item (and much more!) can now be found in our online shop! Visit shopsaltandpaperie.com to see all our new cards, prints, stamps & party supplies!

Some of them are hand-written by me, some are inspired by family & friends, some are things that just resonate with me! I’d like to think that each piece is relevant to our life, and embodies the spirit of Salt + Paperie. It is really a scary thing, pre-creating for someone, for no one but me. It’s putting your heart out there for everyone to see, your creations for everyone to say “I love/hate this!” Of course, I love them all, and I hope you will too!

I added an “About” in our shop, that says everything our website says except for this, “We love working on custom pieces for our clients, but there’s something that creatives need as an outlet to just… make things! The Salt + Paperie Shop is the outlet for the things that we designed because we just wanted to. Each piece is poured over, and carefully designed. Most of the things you’ll find in the shop are words and colors of our lives. It’s a scary thing, putting work out there that we actually love, hoping that you love it too!”

So, in the spirit of September… one last giveaway! (and if you made it this far in the blog, bravo! I know it’s long!) If you share our new shop on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, then let me know, somehow! (Call, text, email, tag… whatever!) You’ll be entered in our final giveaway for one person to be chosen TODAY to win anything out of our shop for free!

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If you don’t care about the mushy gushy, then you don’t have to read this part.

There is nothing that can be said for the love and support that made this shop happen. Thank you first and foremost to Rudy, my second-hand, my cheerleader, my stress relief. Even down to the wire, he made me laugh and never ever complained. But if you know him, you know that’s nothing new. He is now in charge of Shop Salt + Paperie shipping and plans to spend his evenings after he gets off fulfilling orders. Seriously, there aren’t enough words.

Thanks to Erin Lindsey, of Erin Lindsey Images for taking the time out of her insane schedule to take promotion photos for me!

Endless thanks to my cheerleaders and inspirations, my family and friends! I love you to the moon and back!